Published: 20 November 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
THERE ARE BETWEEN 2,000 and 3,000 Jews left in Morocco, down from a community of over a quarter-million at the beginning of the 20th century. Because Morocco’s Jews faced little in the way of organized persecution—because the country was often a safe haven from persecution—a mutual pride endures among non-Jewish Moroccans and the many Moroccan-descended Jews who now live outside the country’s borders.
It’s often tough to assess the substance of Morocco’s welcoming attitude towards Jews, which buoys the state’s confident self-image of tolerance and benevolent autocracy.
In as much as the notion of a Jewish-friendly and therefore liberal kingdom is a politically useful myth, few people have done more to construct that myth, and to create conditions under which it is compelling and plausible, than André Azoulay, the right hand of Mohammed VI, and a figure without parallel anywhere in the Jewish or Muslim world.
FULL STORY André Azoulay Is the most powerful Jew in the Muslim world (Tablet)
Photo: Morocco World News
